County Routes, or only State Routes?

[Roadmaestro95]

Does anybody think that Connecticut should have county routes?

[relaxok]

Does anybody think that Connecticut should have county routes?

Hmm, just curious, what would be the reason?    As in, what would one gain from having them?

Counties are mostly superfluous in CT at this point in time, since there is no county government.. also many state routes cross county lines, etc.  Do you mean re-signing state routes that remain in a single county to be county routes?

[NE2]

Fictional highways...

[shadyjay]

I've thought of signing the secret state routes utilizing the county route shield.

[Michael in Philly]

Does anybody think that Connecticut should have county routes?

Hmm, just curious, what would be the reason?    As in, what would one gain from having them?

Counties are mostly superfluous in CT at this point in time, since there is no county government.. also many state routes cross county lines, etc.  Do you mean re-signing state routes that remain in a single county to be county routes?

Right.  Connecticut's counties (Rhode Island's as well) are strictly geographical entities at this point.  There are no county roads in the five boroughs of New York City either, for the same reason.

[Alps]

This brings up a much broader discussion - county routes or not? Even just in the Northeast, some states do (NJ, NY; MD has county maintained but unnumbered roads) while many states don't (PA, all of New England). It extends down to Delaware, NC, and VA all having no county maintained roads - in NC it's written into law that counties can't maintain roads (according to one L. Corsaro). It's a different business model and something that belongs more in General Highway Talk regarding the value of having a county route system.
Regarding the OP's question - are there particular problems with town or state maintenance, or are there funding issues cropping up? Having traveled a large number of unsigned state highways and town roads (and signed highways, for that matter), I notice a general mediocre quality but nothing jumps out at me as being fantastically bad about the current system.

Fictional highways...

I disagree. Proposing a new system, yes. Discussing the current state of roads, no.

[agentsteel53]

I think it makes more sense out west where the counties are larger, and also the average county road is a sectional line road that gives farm access.  Probably best, from a perspective of federalism, to allow for the county to have control as opposed to the state, which may have its offices hundreds of miles away and therefore not be as tuned into local issues.

[iwishiwascanadian]

This brings up a much broader discussion - county routes or not? Even just in the Northeast, some states do (NJ, NY; MD has county maintained but unnumbered roads) while many states don't (PA, all of New England). It extends down to Delaware, NC, and VA all having no county maintained roads - in NC it's written into law that counties can't maintain roads (according to one L. Corsaro). It's a different business model and something that belongs more in General Highway Talk regarding the value of having a county route system.
Regarding the OP's question - are there particular problems with town or state maintenance, or are there funding issues cropping up? Having traveled a large number of unsigned state highways and town roads (and signed highways, for that matter), I notice a general mediocre quality but nothing jumps out at me as being fantastically bad about the current system.

New Jersey does have signed county routes, in Essex County at least. 

I think that if Connecticut had an organized system of county governments in place it would make since to have a network of county routes.  I think that if that did happen the state could get rid of a bunch of state routes that connect places out in the middle of nowhere in Litchfield County.  Perhaps our Governor could propose regionalism as a way to get rid of the deficit. 

[PAHighways]

Even just in the Northeast, some states do (NJ, NY; MD has county maintained but unnumbered roads) while many states don't (PA, all of New England).

Only two counties in Pennsylvania, Allegheny and Westmoreland, have county routes but only the former designates them with a four digit number.

[Michael in Philly]

This brings up a much broader discussion - county routes or not? Even just in the Northeast, some states do (NJ, NY; MD has county maintained but unnumbered roads) while many states don't (PA, all of New England). It extends down to Delaware, NC, and VA all having no county maintained roads - in NC it's written into law that counties can't maintain roads (according to one L. Corsaro). It's a different business model and something that belongs more in General Highway Talk regarding the value of having a county route system.
Regarding the OP's question - are there particular problems with town or state maintenance, or are there funding issues cropping up? Having traveled a large number of unsigned state highways and town roads (and signed highways, for that matter), I notice a general mediocre quality but nothing jumps out at me as being fantastically bad about the current system.

New Jersey does have signed county routes, in Essex County at least. 

I think that if Connecticut had an organized system of county governments in place it would make since to have a network of county routes.  I think that if that did happen the state could get rid of a bunch of state routes that connect places out in the middle of nowhere in Litchfield County.  Perhaps our Governor could propose regionalism as a way to get rid of the deficit. 

Off topic, but I don't see how creating a new level of government (functioning counties, in this instance) reduces the deficit, at least from the point of view of the taxpayer who - even if the state budget is lower - will need to be supporting the county he lives in as well....

[agentsteel53]

Off topic, but I don't see how creating a new level of government (functioning counties, in this instance) reduces the deficit, at least from the point of view of the taxpayer who - even if the state budget is lower - will need to be supporting the county he lives in as well....

the amount of money expended by the county government would be taken out of the state's budget, and given the fact that the county government is more local to the area it serves, some money would very likely be saved.

[froggie]

and VA all having no county maintained roads

Not completely true in Virginia either.  Both Arlington and Henrico Counties maintain most of their public roads.  Fairfax County studied the idea of taking over their roads last year, but has not (yet) done anything.

[Alps]

Off topic, but I don't see how creating a new level of government (functioning counties, in this instance) reduces the deficit, at least from the point of view of the taxpayer who - even if the state budget is lower - will need to be supporting the county he lives in as well....

the amount of money expended by the county government would be taken out of the state's budget, and given the fact that the county government is more local to the area it serves, some money would very likely be saved.

This is why I favor creating county roads in states like NC and VA. The conversation is going on right now in NC, where the state wants to download heaps of back roads (four-digit/unposted) and all the counties are screaming that they don't want the responsibility. Well someone has to have it!

[mightyace]

Tennessee has county maintained roads including the one my house is on.

However, I've never seen any county route signs.

[agentsteel53]

Tennessee has county maintained roads including the one my house is on.

However, I've never seen any county route signs.

they are out there in select counties.  I cannot remember which one offhand has a bunch of very decaying 18x18 pentagons.  I know it's one that I-75 passes through, as I was driving some of those roads looking for state-named I-75 trailblazers.

[wriddle082]

Tennessee has county maintained roads including the one my house is on.

However, I've never seen any county route signs.

they are out there in select counties.  I cannot remember which one offhand has a bunch of very decaying 18x18 pentagons.  I know it's one that I-75 passes through, as I was driving some of those roads looking for state-named I-75 trailblazers.

That would be McMinn County.

I've also seen pentagons in Monroe County, but I've been told that they've been going away.

Also, back in the 90s when I was in college, I saw (2) county pentagons in opposite ends of Putnam County.  I recently found a photo I took of one of them, which was located just south of Algood and east of Cookeville on Dry Valley Rd at the intersection with Buck Mountain Rd.  (don't worry, the sign's already gone, so I'm not giving up any important info).  Alas, the photo is in storage now and I can't access it to say what the route number is.

The 4-digit county route numbers that are sometimes shown on TN state-issued county maps and are now showing up on Google maps, I believe, are merely TDOT inventory numbers of primarily county-maintained routes that may or may not have received some form of state aid over the years.  I've seen TDOT bridge inspection reports for county-owned bridges that list the county route numbers, and I think I've seen TDOT upcoming project lists that refer to county routes.  Those are pretty much the only official references I've seen to those numbers.

[Quillz]

I've never been a fan of county routes and wouldn't mind if they went away entirely.

[bulldog1979]

Here in Michigan, if it's not a state trunkline or a city/village street, it's a county road. The townships have been prohibited from road maintenance since the 1930s. That means that unless an area is part of a city or a village, the county maintains what otherwise might be a city street elsewhere.

[Eth]

Georgia seems to follow the same rules as Michigan (apart from having no concept of a "township").  I'm not sure if it's still the case, but when I was growing up in far southern metro Atlanta in the '90s, county road numbers used to be printed vertically on green signs (looked like large mileposts, basically) mounted on the backs of stop signs.  The general public had absolutely no idea what the numbers meant, if they even noticed the signs at all, and certainly didn't use them for navigation.

[iwishiwascanadian]

Georgia seems to follow the same rules as Michigan (apart from having no concept of a "township").  I'm not sure if it's still the case, but when I was growing up in far southern metro Atlanta in the '90s, county road numbers used to be printed vertically on green signs (looked like large mileposts, basically) mounted on the backs of stop signs.  The general public had absolutely no idea what the numbers meant, if they even noticed the signs at all, and certainly didn't use them for navigation.

Doesn't Virginia do something like that with state roads? I've noticed it in NoVa...I think...I believe they are in white. 

[Revive 755]

I'm not sure which is truly best.  Local control can go both ways - having a road belong to a county or city versus the state can sometimes backfire when the locals start getting excessive with stop signs (many unwarranted) and the speed limit reductions.  I'm think of St. Louis County Missouri, - which does not have a true county highway system but a system of arterial roads control by the county - where if a road is under MoDOT control, it can take longer for the locals to get pointless speed reductions but if it was a county road the speed limit can fall much faster after the local outcry from someone doing double the speed limit killing themselves on the road.

Then there's the issue of state legislatures treating roads as if being maintained by the state over the county really necessitates a different set of rules - witness the speed limits for two lane roads in Nebraska and the proposed two lane speed limits in Iowa that give the state routes a bonus five miles per hour over a county route which could have even been a previous state route that only got turned over.

Main advantage I see with county routes is funding wise, where funds are not likely to get diverted to a highway on the other side of the state when there is a local road needing a major upgrade.

I'd go with state routes, or at least a decent county state aid system, preferably with a marking system like the one used in Iowa.

[tdindy88]

Indiana typically does not do county routes, but there are at least three examples, or at least there were.

The first one I'm familar with is CR 144 in Johnson County. It connected two segments of SR 144 and for a good while there was a blue pentagon marker at its intersection with SR 37. This has since disappeared, but this website has a picture of the shield.
http://www.highwayexplorer.com/Gallery.php?id=544&section=11442&terminus=Eastern+Terminus

The second one is CR 17 in Elkhart County. This county numbers all of its roads so 17 is just where it fits in the grid but there is a pentagon shield on the BGS leading to its exit off the Indiana Toll Road. I've not been on the road itself so I am unsure if there are actual shields on it.
https://www.aaroads.com/midwest/indiana080/i-080_090_wb_exit_096_04.jpg

The third one is along SR 32 in Montogomery County east of I-74 at CR 625 E. For some reason, there is a blue pentagon shield at this location. It's still on Google Earth Streetview so it appears that it still exists.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Crawfordsville,+IN&aq=&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=27.699934,86.220703&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Crawfordsville,+Montgomery,+Indiana&ll=40.046495,-86.790349&spn=0,0.0842&t=h&z=14&layer=c&cbll=40.046581,-86.79029&panoid=m8Bt-3aGluLlr_aMyDfJOQ&cbp=12,80.84,,0,2.61

[Eth]

Georgia seems to follow the same rules as Michigan (apart from having no concept of a "township").  I'm not sure if it's still the case, but when I was growing up in far southern metro Atlanta in the '90s, county road numbers used to be printed vertically on green signs (looked like large mileposts, basically) mounted on the backs of stop signs.  The general public had absolutely no idea what the numbers meant, if they even noticed the signs at all, and certainly didn't use them for navigation.

Doesn't Virginia do something like that with state roads? I've noticed it in NoVa...I think...I believe they are in white. 

Not quite the same, but similar (Georgia style on left, Virginia on right):

[oscar]

Off topic, but I don't see how creating a new level of government (functioning counties, in this instance) reduces the deficit, at least from the point of view of the taxpayer who - even if the state budget is lower - will need to be supporting the county he lives in as well....

Hawaii has no municipal governments below the county level, and also centralizes at the state level many traditionally local functions such as public schools and the library system.  But all the counties, except oddball Kalawao, have their own transportation agencies, and all except Kalawao and Honolulu counties have numbered county highway networks (Honolulu had one after the county networks were established in the late 1960s, but it fell into disuse by the late 1990s). 

One might think that compressing the traditional three levels of government below the Federal level into two or even one would lead to efficiency, but this being Hawaii, you would be very wrong.

[mightyace]

Interesting tidbit.  I was on my way to work this morning and had to slow down for a Williamson County road crew patching up a few feet of West Main Street in Franklin, TN that is definitely part of TN SSR 246.